by Talyn Scott
Contents
Copyright
Title
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Other Titles By Talyn Scott
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. This book is written for those eighteen years and older.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Copyright © 2015 by Talyn Scott.
All Rights Reserved.
Sage
Vampire Werewolf Menage
Sanibel Immortals Book 2
Talyn Scott
Chapter 1
Nizhnevartovsk, Russia
“Why ruin a perfectly good steak?”
Sage studied Flynn Ruyter’s half-eaten stroganoff. “Pick out the meat.”
“What am I, five years old?”
Sage leaned across the table. “Perhaps we can find some fresh, steamy roadkill for you, if we step outside.”
The past three days had been hell on all of them, particularly Flynn. Daily, werewolves fucked females, fought for territorial lines with canines and claws, and ate several pounds of meat — raw or cooked. So considering Flynn lacked three basic essentials that kept his werewolf on idle, and that he was also a volatile Territorial Beta, Sage and Oycher chose to ignore his rising bitchiness.
“We’re due on the plane in two hours,” Oycher hissed, “so cut the shit.”
Slowly, Flynn set down his fork, his indigo eyes threatening to blaze. “Doesn’t it give you the warm fuzzes, going home empty handed?”
“Yeah, failed missions make me all tingly inside.”
Their trio made up a Joint Faction skeleton crew formed to target an underworld blood club buried beneath the streets of Nizhnevartovsk. Two mixed blood Americans needed retrieval, one male and one female. Problem was, the three powerhouses had nothing to show for their combined efforts.
But what did anyone expect when most of the Joint Faction’s intel was based on hearsay? And it didn’t matter one bit to Sage that the Coven Master of Russia had backed up the Joint Faction’s street sources. Because two seats on their damn plane would remain empty on their flight home.
“My gut’s gnawing at me to stay.” Sage pushed away the plate he’d pretended to eat, his fangs throbbing for blood. And since the restaurant was wall-to-wall humans, apart from a glamoured Lovec, Sage couldn’t convince his body that it wasn’t dinner time.
“I’ll carve you some free time.” Though night had long fallen, Oycher kept his glowing sunset eyes hidden behind special glasses, the gaze beneath staying fixed on the window next to their table. “So you can hang with your family.”
“I don’t want to see family, I want to — ”
“Our cover was nearly blown last night,” Oycher cut him off. “We’re not going underground here again without concrete evidence from better sources. Honestly, I think this entire investigation was led purposefully off course.”
“Inside job?”
“Maybe.”
“Doesn’t matter. You saw what I saw.” Flynn gripped the table’s edge. “You smelled what I smelled.”
Sage agreed, “The sources were right about one thing: that blood club we entered once held Donors. Remnants of mixed blood werewolves lingered in the air.”
Flynn nodded. “And our kind would not attend willingly.”
Sage had never met a mixed blood who refused his bite, particularly when he coupled it with a good hard grind. But he was in no mood to plead his or any other vampire’s case on fucking and sucking to Flynn. Since the Beta already knew the drill. After all, even some werewolves could deliver pleasure packed endorphins with their bites.
“But the alleged Donors were not on the premises, leaving me dry on evidence,” Oycher pointed out, “And I’m thinking they were removed months ago.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t catch the faintest trail topside of the club.”
“Nor could I,” Flynn admitted.
Oycher slid out his phone, probably placing another call to his Isladora. She’d been summoned to offer her blood at the Dynasty Empire, by none other than Prince Volos. Sage didn’t know how Oycher allowed his Bride such intimacy with another male. Then again, Oycher, Terje, and Isladora didn’t have another choice but to obey, not if they wanted to keep their new family together.
Suddenly tensing, Flynn’s nostrils flared. His eyes sparked for the briefest of seconds as he lifted his head slowly, slowly, slowly up. In the canting position werewolf males used to track criminals, game, and… females.
Sage tilted his head, discretely following Flynn’s line of vision. Across the table from the glamoured Lovec sat a woman. “I smell the Lovec and surrounding humans, nothing more. What’s your problem?”
Flynn’s hands curled into fists. “She’s a mixed blood, probably from an Alpha line.” His eyes flicked to her. “And she’s unmarked by any Pack.”
Could the Lovec be using compulsion on her? Sage doubted it. Otherwise, he would have her somewhere besides an open restaurant, where she was clearly enjoying her meal. The couple appeared as though they were on a date.
Sage’s hand came down on Flynn’s fist the moment he attempted to stand. “Don’t.”
“Hands off, Vojak,” Flynn snarled. “I’m taking her.”
“This isn’t Sanibel Island.” Though Sage still couldn’t scent the female’s genetics, a waft of her anger just carried through the restaurant. “In Russia, you can’t go storming up to a Lovec and demand he hand over his date. You have no more authority here than our waitress does.” Underground, covert missions, though, were another authority all together.
“He keeps checking his phone. Something’s about to go down.”
Though the Lovec’s back was turned to them, Sage spotted the tension lining his thick shoulders, the way his leg bounced beneath the table. On second look, the date appeared one sided. And when the Lovec took another glance at his phone before looking over his shoulder to check the front door, Sage had seen enough.
He nudged Oycher’s knee with his own. With a discreet nod, Oycher gave Isladora his love, put away his phone, and placed a wad of bills on the table.
The Lovec made a hurry-up gesture and the female gave him a look of utter frustration, her hand motioning to her full plate. Having enough, the Lovec stood and yanked her up by her arm, hauling her to the front.
Flynn tensed to bolt.
“Think of the humans here,” Oycher warned. “Wait till he’s outside before we give chase.”
Flynn nodd
ed his agreement. Human involvement was a no-go… But then the waitress started chasing them, lifting a paper above her head while sputtering thief.
“If that woman only knew she was chasing one of the most powerful vampires — a Donor hunter, in the world,” Sage said as he hurried to the front of the restaurant, both Oycher and Flynn on his heels, “she’d forget that damn tab.”
When Sage’s hand hit the door, he spotted the Lovec losing his shit. The vampire’s eyes black flames, the Lovec pitched money on the sidewalk at the waitress. She hurled back obscenities as she stomped the bills into the snow-covered sidewalk. Turning away from her, the Lovec focused on a decades old Mercedes slinking around the corner.
Sage lunged forward.
Then four things seemed to happen at once: The Lovec discretely knocked the female’s purse from her hand; she turned around to catch the purse before it hit the ground; the Mercedes pulled up with the backdoor swinging open; and the Lovec wrapped his arm around the female’s waist and pitched her inside.
The Mercedes took off in one direction, the Lovec sprinting off in the other.
“I couldn’t make out his face, could you?”
“Nope.”
“Get the female,” Oycher told Flynn. “We’ll take down the Lovec.”
Because if they let the bastard go, he’d find another victim tonight, and the nights thereafter.
Resigned to kill the Lovec and burn him in a back alleyway, Sage took off behind Oycher. A brush of a touch suddenly parted his hair, searing his scalp with a burning pain. He lifted his hand to the trickle of blood, right when the waitress flew onto her back with a fresh bullet hole right between her eyes.
“Shit!” Flynn thrust his hands in his hair. “Sage?”
“Just go get the mixed blood!”
Another waitress bolted from the front door with a man at her side. She started screaming in Sage’s native tongue, but her words were such a jumbled mess he couldn’t make them out. Then again, he didn’t have to. Grief was a universal language.
Oycher darted back from the alley, his glasses long gone. “Bullet?”
“It’s a graze,” Sage explained over the woman’s screams. The gathering crowd, the very people of his homeland, were looking at him with open scorn and accusation. As though Sage caused this whole damn mess. “Get the bastard, Commander. I’ll catch up with you.”
Sage dropped to his knees, next to the dead waitress. His mouth filled with fangs, though not due to her spilled blood. Time leaned backwards, his mind threatening to remind him, as he curled the woman’s curls behind her lifeless ears. “Elissa.”
“No.” Oycher was back at his side, yanking him up. “She is not Elissa.”
“She took a bullet for me.” So how could Sage fight this innate battle to save her?
“Snap out of it.” Oycher shook him. “You cannot right wrongs this way.”
“It has nothing to do with righting wrongs,” he spat out over the rising sobs surrounding them, “but everything to do with giving some sort of life back, to someone who didn’t deserve to die.”
Ever the voice of reason, Oycher placed a firm hand on Sage’s shoulder. “Hardly anyone deserves to die. You gonna save all dead humans with those fangs, condemning them to a life of darkness?”
“Coerce the onlookers,” Sage demanded. “I’ll lift her. Time’s running out.”
He would make her Undead.
His Undead.
“Absolutely not, and that’s a direct order.”
“You cannot command me in this,” Sage argued, swiping at the blood trickling into his eye. “I can choose to raise an Undead.”
“Not while you’re working, and you’re sure as hell working right now.” Oycher grabbed Sage’s face, licking his wound closed to the disgusted gasps of the mortal onlookers. His voice softened a fraction when he said, “Flynn’s too far ahead of us. He’s outnumbered to take them alone, and that female mixed blood is alive. Alive, do you hear me? You will not make anyone Undead out of misplaced guilt.”
Although Oycher couldn’t completely read his mind, Sage was thinking exactly that. He glanced down at the waitress one last time, her blood staining the glimmering snow the deepest shade of crimson.
“Sage?” Oycher called, as the roar of sirens neared.
“Right behind you.”
Chapter 2
Ob River on Nizhnevartovsk
“Welcome to my home, Scarlett.”
A smile stretched her face when the elevator doors spread wide. “It’s beautiful, Roman.”
He rolled her suitcase into his penthouse’s grand foyer. “But you still don’t like Nizhnevartovsk.”
“That’s not true.”
“You could never fool me.” He took off his outerwear and she followed suit, placing her hat and gloves on a marble topped table. “Just like your brother, you wear your emotions.”
“Okay.” She held up her hands in a surrender gesture. “Let’s just say that I’m used to the Captiva Island climate and leave it at that, please.”
“By week’s end,” he vowed, “I’m going to change your mind about relocating here.”
“You’ve always loved a challenge.” Reaching across the table, she brought a fresh bloom to her nose, inhaling. “Speaking of my brother, where is he?”
“Still out on business, I’m afraid.” The corners of Roman’s lips turned down. “Bestra’s about four hours away and completely exhausted. I promised him we’d find some way of amusing ourselves tonight, without him.”
“Really?” Scarlett’s stomach clenched way low. “Then Bestra will be here within the hour.”
“Don’t worry.” He reached a long, tapered finger to the elevator’s keypad and typed in a code. “That’s what locks are for.”
That clenching went beyond her stomach, straight to the lonely spot between her legs. Scarlett shifted, so she wouldn’t be tempted to squeeze her thighs together. “Innocent girls like me get into a heap of trouble behind locked doors.”
“Innocent girls, huh?” Eyes of tempered gold fringed by long, sooty lashes; skin of gleaming pearls stretched over angular cheekbones, and hair blacker than a night of sin painted Roman Noskov. And Scarlett had wanted him for years. “I must have confused you with someone jaded and naughty.”
She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. He had this way of stoking her and then backing off. Scarlett had no idea if Roman was hot and cold due to Bestra’s interference or just downright moody. Losing her heart to her brother’s longtime friend and business partner wasn’t in her or Bestra’s best interest, if Roman couldn’t actually commit.
Up on her tiptoes, she pressed a kiss to the hard line of his jaw. “I’m somewhere in between I suppose.”
He dipped his head to her face, kissing her cheek as he led her inside the welcoming warmth of his main lounge. She shivered while handing him the fur he’d provided upon her arrival, a piece of clothing she would normally never deign to wear, yet the current temperature had dropped below zero.
“Maybe so, I noticed the changes in you the moment you stepped from the plane.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “It’s been a couple of years since last we’ve visited. Let’s never wait this long again.”
It’d been longer, but Scarlet refused to admit aloud that she’d been counting the days. “You were the one who stopped visiting after I moved to Captiva Island. Bestra has since come alone.” She tilted her head, staring up at him. “What happened?”
He pursed those lips she’d longed to kiss, his black brows slanting low over his eyes, but he said nothing.
“It was Charles, wasn’t it?”
“I thought his name was Will.”
“There was a Will, too…” She tapped her chin with a thoughtful finger. “I thought I’d dumped Will before college graduation.”
He sighed. “How many have there been?”
They’d never discussed her dating life in length, and this was way out of character for Roman. “I could ask you the sam
e damn thing, confirmed bachelor.”
“I am a man.” Though his last birthday was forty-two, he didn’t look a day over thirty-five, not a single line or gray hair in sight.
Scarlet pushed away from him and smacked his arm. “Tell me you didn’t say that.”
“I did,” he said unabashedly. “I don’t like thinking of you with all those men.”
“All those men?” Only once had she hooked-up for a one-nighter, recently as a pre-birthday celebration, when she experienced her first and only threesome. The rest of all those men, as Roman put it, were legitimate relationships. The longest had lasted a year. The rest had lasted anywhere from three to six months, but she kept trying. “I take offense. And for an attorney,” she said with a shake of her finger, “you sure don’t believe in keeping the scales balanced.”
With a shake of his head, Roman laughed.
She started to laugh, too. “I guess we have a long way to go before finding our significant others.” A sudden thought knotted her stomach. “Unless you have better news than I do?”
“I think I do.” He smiled wanly. “Are you up for this news?”
“Yes.” No! Absolutely not, her mind roared. He was truly breaking her heart, and she hadn’t experienced the simple pleasure of kissing him!
“You will wait until we share a toast, nonetheless.”
“Sounds great.” And very necessary. She followed him deep into a sitting area, where a wall of windows stretched out before the bank of the Ob River.
He smiled, watching her taking it all in.
“Wow!” She didn’t know where to look first. “It’s truly incredible, even without daylight.”
“Yes, I never tire of admiring this view.” His eyes staying on her, Roman reached for a chilled decanter and two squat glasses placed beside a tray of fresh, baked teacakes, pouring them each a healthy dose of vodka.
His look of possession was a new layer in his teasing arsenal, and her low belly clenching came back tenfold. So Scarlett took a steadying breath and turned back to the view. “Why does something so beautiful have to be so cold? My blood’s so thin from Florida weather, I’ll probably stay in here most of the week, when what I really want to do is see everything.”